Keeping Score
by xoxcrescentmoonxox
Summary: In the year or so since James Potter hit puberty, Asking Out Lily had become, after Quidditch, Hogwarts' favorite spectator sport. Oneshot.


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_For Amy and Kara, who went through the Harry Potter and the Bad Pickup Lines group on Facebook with me all afternoon - and Wendy and SJ, who were a little late. This is utter crack by my standards, not so much by fanfiction's. But still. Be warned; ridiculousness may insue._

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On full moons, sometimes it seemed that all of Hogwarts reverberated with the moans and howls eerily straining through the night from the Shrieking Shack. Tonight, thirteen year old James Potter sat with two of his friends, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. They were attempting to play a game of Exploding Snap, but in the absence of the reason of their fourth friend, Remus, whose aunt was ill—again—the game had turned painful, singing away a tuft of Sirius' hair, half of Peter's left eyebrow, and a piece of James' chin that he insisted had been the beginnings of a beard.

"This is all Remus' fault," grumbled James, feeling his singed face cautiously. "If he was here, I could have had still had facial hair."

"Yeah, and Snivelly _could _have clean hair," snickered Sirius. "Wait, what?"

James snorted and got to his feet, peering out the window in the direction of Hogsmeade and the Shrieking Shack. "Whoever's in there sounds like they're having a lot more fun that we are," he said. He made a lewd gesture towards Peter and Sirius, both of whom laughed appreciatively.

Just then, Lily Evans, weighted down by a full bookbag that indicated she hadn't been back to the common room since the end of classes, stepped through the portrait hole. Peter elbowed Sirius, and both of them made little suggestive noises in James' direction. Not missing any of it, Lily flashed them a glare that would have frozen a basilisk. Still chuckling, Peter and Sirius shrank down and continued with Exploding Snap—or rather, Exploding Small Objects Found Within Arm's Reach. Meanwhile, James sauntered over to Lily. His shadow fell across the parchment she'd just begun to write on.

"What do you want, Potter?" she asked him, quill stilling, but not looking up.

"Um." He couldn't very well say "you", because that would get him hexed faster than you could say "Snivelly's in the Great Hall with no pants on." (And James, having had a lot of practice, could say that very fast.)

Her quill began scratching across the parchment again: some unintelligible scrawl that, after several seconds of attempts to decipher (was she asking him out in secret code?), James realized just said "The War Between Goblins and House Elves, 1106" when it wasn't upside down.

"We could take a walk," he suggested.

Lily looked up then, raising her eyebrows. Around the common room, various other eavesdropping Gryffindors perked up—in the year or so since James Potter hit puberty, Asking Out Lily had become, after Quidditch, Hogwarts' favorite spectator sport.

"Or you could take a hike," she suggested malevolently.

Conscious of the suppressed giggles around him, James drew in a deep breath. Just once, he wanted to end this triumphantly instead of with the typical score of James Potter: 0; Lily Evans: too many to count.

He staggered backwards, pretending to be offended at her tetchiness. "I guess it really is true about full moons, then," he exclaimed, raising his hands.

Some of the older boys whooped, while every girl in the common room huffed at James Potter.

"What do they say about full moons?" Sirius asked Peter frantically. "That Remus' aunt always gets sick?"

Peter stopped just short of exploding Sirius' best quill. "It's … it's something about … girls," he said uncomfortably. "You know, how they bleed … down _there_ … during a full moon."

Sirius looked affronted. "Remus leaves us every month because of his aunt's _lady problems_?"

Meanwhile, James pressed on with Lily. "I know how to make you feel better."

"Good. You'll leave me alone, then?"

"Certainly not!" He paused, weighting risky options in his mind. Finally, he went all out. "Kiss me."

She dropped her quill and laughed. "Potter, other than swelling your already overready … ego, what would that accomplish?"

He gaped at her. "You mean you don't know?"

She raised her eyebrows.

"Well," he explained, "When a Pureblood kisses a Muggleborn, the, er, way their lips mesh together creates … utter bliss and harmony for the two of them."

"What happens when said Muggleborn doesn't like said Pureblood very much?"

"Why, the harmony is even more … it's more, er, harmonious!"

The incredulous look on Lily's face told James that she didn't believe a word. She shook her head disgustedly and returned to writing. James sidled back to Sirius and Peter and hissed, "What do I do now?"

"Try again," Peter encouraged.

"Be ridiculous."

"Woo her with your good looks and smooth tongue."

Peter and Sirius looked at each other and started laughing.

James glared at them. "I don't seem to get the joke," he said, sighing inwardly.

"Well, James, the thing is, you don't _have_ good lucks or a smooth tongue," laughed Sirius.

"So," clarified Peter, "You're probably out of luck."

James wished even harder for Remus' eternally sick aunt to get better. He drifted over to the window and pretended to inspect the moon, really watching Lily's reflection in the glass. She'd begun writing again, but after a few seconds, she looked up, gaze finally setting on James standing at the window. He winked at her reflection, and, as he'd hoped, she saw.

"Potter!" she exclaimed, getting up and marching over to the window. "Stop that!"

He turned to face her, the window running perpendicular to both of them. "What, will that wink get me sent to Azkaban?"

She rolled her eyes as another howl came through the window, muffled but distinctly audible.

"Sounds like he or she's having fun," James said, grinning.

"That's all you can ever think about, isn't it?" sighed Lily. "For all you know, that's some … some tortured animal locked up by the authorities, but _no_, James Potter thinks it's a bloke getting it on because that's what _he _wants to be doing right now."

James' eyes twinkled. "You know me so well."

The man, beast, whatever it was, cried out again. A thought struck James. He ran his tongue across his lips, deciding if the remark would be worth the sure pain to follow.

It would.

"Want to head over there, Lily?" he asked, making sure to be loud enough that the common room could hear his genius. "We could do some shrieking of our own."

For a second, she glared at him. He thought she was actually going to start screaming. But then her face smoothed over, and she nearly purred, "I bet I can get you to shriek even away from the Shack."

"Really?" James asked hopefully. In the background, imperceptible to his ears that heard only Lily, Sirius and Peter clamored, "James, you bloody idiot, this will hurt!"

"Oh, definitely," she assured him. "Come here."

She stepped towards him, softly taking him around the shoulders. His face came down towards hers. He didn't want to close his eyes; he'd never been this close to Lily Evans' lips in his life, and, if he was being honest with himself (which he usually wasn't), he wasn't sure if he ever would be again.

Suddenly, her knee slammed against the inside of his thigh, just close enough to his groin to hurt. Her lips fell away from his vision as he crashed to the floor, screaming a long, high note, and finally rolling up in a little ball from which he stared up at Lily angrily.

"You lied to me," he exclaimed.

She laughed and pushed her hair behind her ears, wiping her hands against her skirt. "I don't think so," she said.

Behind her, the inhabitants of the common room—even Sirius and Peter—were in various stages of trying not to laugh.

"In fact," Lily continued, "I'd say that as far as shrieking goes, you've given whatever creature's over there a run for his money."

Lily grinned and walked away as the chatter commenced in the common room. Another howl drifted through the window as James curled up and moaned.

Sirius snickered to Peter, "Which would you rather be?" He jerked his head between James and the window.

Shaking his head to clear his mind of bleeding and lady parts, Peter replied, "I'd like to have just missed this ordeal. Remus!"

To a continuing chorus of howls and moans, the boys played Exploding Snap, James lamented the loss of his facial hair _and _manhood, and the common room noted that in the game of Asking Out Lily, the score was now James Potter: 0 and Lily Evans: too many to count. Plus one.

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_Just to clarify, the specific line I based this off of was "Want to head over to the Shrieking Shack? We can do some shrieking of our own." I'd love to hear any thoughts on this fic!_


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